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Wednesday, March 20, 2013

App Review: Reading Comprehension Camp

Recently I was contacted by Jonathan at Smarty Ears about reviewing two of their apps to target reading skills. Since the majority of my caseload is preschool, I asked Jonathan if he would agree to let one of my co-workers use the apps and write the reviews. He was kind enough to agree.

This review is written by Jennifer Malloy, MS, CCC-SLP. (To see her review of Reading Rehabilitation Toolkit, click HERE). Jenn splits her time between an elementary and middle school in my district. Take it away Jenn!

Hi
everyone! Today
I am reviewing another amazing app from Smarty Ears. This app is called Reading Comprehension Camp ($19.99 in iTunes). I have been using this app non-stop since receiving the code from
Carrie. (Thanks again, Carrie!) This app is very user friendly and the students’
activity level and participation during therapy sessions has been fantastic.

The
app opens to the home screen and the user has the ability to select “Student
Lounge” or “Read.”

When
“Read” is selected, the user is prompted to create and/or select the number of
readers that will be participating in the activity. The app allows for up to
four student’s data to be tracked at once.The app allows the user to use student’s photos above their names or
select an avatar.My kids love seeing
themselves! The“Student Lounge” allows the user to select a
student and data from across all sessions for that specific user will be
displayed. Perfect for quick data collection!

Now
for the good stuff! After
selecting up to four readers, the app will allow the user to choose a story.
The stories are rated from 1-5, increasing in length and complexity.Under each rating, there are ten stories to
choose from!

A
single picture related to the story is displayed on majority of the screen with
the written print on the bottom of the screen.This set up can be changed under settings. The font can be made larger
and the picture on the screen can be made smaller.

The
student has the option to listen to the story as well, by pressing the arrow
button on the lower left side of the picture.

When
the student has finished reading and/or listening the story, the clinician can
select the quiz button on the left hand side of the screen. This was my favorite
part of the app. The quiz utilizes so many types of questions and assesses an
array of speech and language concepts.

Who

What

When

Where

Why

How

Inferences

Cause and Effect

Compare and Contrast

Sequencing

Vocabulary/Context
Clues

The
quiz allows the student to read the question independently or have the question
read to him/her by pressing the speaker button to the left of the
question.Four answers are displayed for
the student to choose from. The student has the text displayed while answering
questions to go back and look for the correct answer, if he/she is unable to
remember independently.

There is a hint button that highlights
the sentence in the short story that contains the answer for the student to
review and then try to answer the question.

The
app is very customizable to the student’s current performance level.There are options to “Hide Image” and “Hide
Text.” “Finish
quiz” can be selected at any point during the quiz, even if the student has not
completed it in its entirety.The
clinician can then go to the student lounge, click on the child’s name, and
view how the student answered the various questions.

How I Used the
App:

I
do not have many students that are fluent readers, however I used this app
daily after receiving it.

ASSESSMENT: It was
progress report time and I had over 20 students with goals related to answering
mixed “wh” questions to assess comprehension.I chose the level appropriate for each student and read the story aloud
to him/her. After the story I asked the posed questions and tracked the student’s
answers. I did not give the students a multiple-choice option at that time. I
had to see what they could do independently! During therapy sessions, however,
I will give the students cues and prompts while using multiple-choice options
to the posed questions. This was a great tool not only for the students, but
for me as well! With ten stories in each of the levels, I did not have to read
the same story 9 times in a single day!!!

ARTICULATION: I used this
app with a pair of students I currently treat for articulation. The students
are beginning to read paragraphs while keeping their accuracy with targetspeech sounds.A bright red RECORD button is located on the
upper right hand corner on the story display page. I had the students record their
speech while reading the short story.After they listened and assessed their own speech. One student was
surprised how well he did. He said, “Miss Malloy I’m almost perfect with /r/!”

Likes:

I
enjoyed this app very much. It helped while collecting data for progress
reports! The students enjoyed the stories and the pictures. The students were
engaged and participating during the entire session!! The app is very flexible,
it lends itself to target many goals, not only reading comprehension.The data collection is key when you have a
caseload over 50!

Changes I would like to see in an update:

1.
There are some typos in the stories and this really confused some of the
students that did use the app for reading.One story opens and the Zebra’s name is Zack and then changes to Zach.
Not a huge change for fluent readers, but the students had difficulty with this
change.Other errors included adding
words that did not belong. “Asked Zach as he they sat down to eat
the cake in the kitchen.” I understand typos happen but it throws kids for a
loop!

2.
This one is just a quirky personal thing. On the data collection page, the
month and date are transposed so instead of: Month/Day/Year it is
Day/Month/Year.

Overall: I thoroughly
enjoy this app and I look forward to using it for many of my upcoming sessions!

~Jenn

PS, To watch a video tutorial and see Reading Comprehension Camp in action, scroll down to the bottom of this page.

Disclaimer: Smarty Ears provided a copy of Reading Comprehension Camp for the purposes of this review and giveaway. However, opinions expressed are those of the SLP who provided the review.

I just read through GeekDad's 67 Must Read Aloud Books Blog post today. I've read, read-aloud, or have had read-aloud to me, forty-five of the sixty-seven. Some of my favorites as an under-ten were Winnie the Pooh, Stuart Little, Wind in the Willows and the Borrowers.

I work as a school based speech-language pathologist in New Bedford, MA. I work primarily with students in preschool and kindergarten. I'm also the mom of a very sweet little boy who takes up much of my free time.